The album release party for the Apologies album is on July the 25th and I thought I?d write a little about the fantastic musicians I?ve somehow convinced to play with me. I?m a lucky, lucky guy.

The Rustles are a duo comprising Jay Clarkson and Tony de Raad. I met Jay in the mid-90s, she?s the mother of my good friend Sam. She has rich history of great songwriting, but I guess I didn?t really see her play much until 1998 when I was fortunate enough to be around as she recorded her the album Kindle. Last year, Jay released her latest, Over the Mountain, which is very very nice. To me, Jay evokes Leonard Cohen with her rich lyrical content. However, her guitar playing sets her apart. I don?t really know of anybody that plays like Jay. Tony also plays with David Kilgour, and I believe he played on one of my favourite albums, Lanky?s Wait. I?m really looking forward to seeing these two play.

I first saw Julian Temple play maybe four or five years ago. I set up sound for his band, which was called the Juju Crew at the time. It was an extremely easy mix as they are great musicians who play at a reasonable volume. In the last couple of years I?ve seen Julian every day, over and over – he plays Detective James Burton in the forensic investigation game Casebook, which I produce as my day job. I can honestly say I like Julian?s music more and more as time goes on.

Tono and I first played a gig together a couple of years ago, both of us as soloists. Every now and again he claims that I was the inspiration behind the hyper-newzealandisation of his singing accent. I like to remind him that I in turn stole my accent from Martin Phillipps. We?ve gigged together and played together a few times over the last couple of years, including recently at the Pages From Dunedin release gig at Dunedin?s Regent Theatre. I played tambourine on one of his numbers, and the Finance Company became my band for one of mine. Tono is fast making a name for himself in this part of the world as a purveyor of well crafted wit-pop and socio-political commentary.

Operation Rolling Thunder are one of my favourite live acts. Two brothers originally hailing from the depths of Invercargill who create such an awesome noise as to leave most listeners gaping. They?ve been around for the better part of a decade, and they don?t play very often. Maybe this is so that they always leave you wanting more. I want more right now. Their set at the Biff Merchants album release show earlier this year was fantastic and I?m very, very happy that they?ve agreed to play.

The Sunley Band for the night is a six-piece affair. On drums, Benjamin Sargeant of the Biff Merchants. He was a little scared of the country music at first, but after a couple of drinks he loosened up and eased into it. Ben also played with the Frankenstein supergroup Corrosive Se?or Quail, he?s a fun guy. On bass, Scott Campbell. Scott has been a member of almost all incarnations of the Sunley Band and I?m very glad about this, he?s a great player. Scott also plays with the Julian Temple Band and the Entropy Trio, as well as the Dunedin City Jazz Orchestra. Aidan Fraser joins us on keys. This is the first time we?ve played with Aidan, although Scott and Aidan have played together plenty, notably in the now-defunct Retrophonic Funk Machine. Aidan has also just taken over composition duties from me for Casebook and has scored episode four of the game. On guitar is Chris Keogh, of Sex With Bowie and previously the Tweaks. Chris is another one of these guys who can pick up songs and make them his own very quickly. He?s also always creating? I?m very jealous of him. And finally my good friend Karl Fearsforlife will be playing banjo and whatever else we shove in his hands. I?ve know Karl for over fifteen years – he taught me my first bitchin? electric guitar riff (it was ?Enter Sandman?). He played with me in the Evan Sunley James All-Star Tribute band and in For the Quail, and he?s played in almost all of the Sunley Bands. Hopefully at least three of these guys will be singing as well.

“Cadbury should eat a dick, I hate that ad,” my girlfriend said as I was cooking a green curry. That got me thinking about bad advertising. Yeah, I hate that ad as well, but for no reason other than it annoys the hell out of me. You know, the one with the eyebrows. The sequel to the gorilla ad that sent Phil Collins to the top of the charts again (honestly though – I just can’t believe people went out and bought that single again. Didn’t they have the Miami Vice series soundtrack?). Generally, I’m fairly happy about that particular style of advertising.

No, it’s the misleading and downright outrageous advertising I want to talk about. And I have done before. I probably will do again. I was spurred into pre-action this time by a tweet (which, I’m sorry, I can’t seem to find) that linked to a New Zealand blog (which I now can’t remember, I’m terrible) about bad advertising. The latest post was about the Richard Hammond Telecom XT Network adverts, in particular the first one, which “proved” XT’s comprehensive coverage by recording some voices in a studio and pasting them over some pictures of a stuntwoman in various places that.

Yep, that was bad, but I just can’t believe the latest one. Hammond doesn’t want to talk about Telecom’s pricing plan (I wouldn’t either, it’s extremely expensive. I’m not defending Vodafone NZ, in New Zealand, we get roofied and violated with a chandelier the minute we pick up a cellphone). He wants to show you that the XT mobile network can deliver a picture faster than a jet sprint boat can go around the course.

Now, I’ve had a look at the New Zealand jet sprint boat racing siteand it looks like a good, fast result for a lap on a course like that is about 49 seconds. Now, the maximum specified downlink speed for a 3G network is 14.4Mbps, maximum uplink 5.7Mbps, and Telecom has this to say about XT:

The new network supports average speeds of 3Mbps downlink and 1Mbps uplink and peak download speeds will be 14.4Mbps downlink and 5.7Mbps uplink.

Now, in real terms, at peak you might transfer 84.11Mb downstream and 33.29Mb upstream in 49 seconds; at the average speed you might get 17.5Mb downstream and 5.84Mb upstream.

OK. So let’s assume that the picture that gets sent is 1Mb (which it almost certainly isn’t, but I can’t be bothered trying to find Telecom’s maximum dimensions for a picture in an MMS). At the average network speed, and allowing for some time lost in the dark places between in the middle between the sender’s phone and the receiver’s phone, this isn’t really even a competition. Or at least, you’d think not. But the advert suggests that the boat and the message are almost neck and neck… or fairly close at least. Are they suggesting the network is slower than advertised? That your messages are going to spend a lot of time on Telecom’s servers being inspected by the thought police? That coverage at the sprint circuit is pretty poor and it slows the user down (after all, it would probably be a more remote location than those in the advert that showed off XT’s coverage)?

It’s stupid, and it’s frustrating. Telecom especially annoys me, because I believe a lot of their customers come from a time when we had no choice for telecommunications (by which I mean we had no semblance of a choice; we couldn’t choose the shape of our tormentor). I think (and I have no proof, I’m just speculating) that in much the same way Microsoft Explorer still has users – because it’s the button on your new computer that says “internet” – Telecom gets internet and mobile users because that’s who installed the party line on the farm back in the day. Surely, if you really have a good network, you aim your marketing at nerds and people who actually need good mobile coverage. But this advertising is pure lowest common denominator, using celebrity and whiz-bang imagery but absolutely no substance whatsoever. I’m not alone in this though, as a quick search for discussion about this campaign will show.

Incidentally, I couldn’t find the ads on the Telecom website. Maybe they’re embarrassed.

I don’t have a landline any more and I’m happy about it. I know the money I pay for my naked DSL mostly goes back to them, but I’m happy at least that a small Christchurch company can take a cut on the way through. I’m anything but happy with my mobile service, but these adverts are doing nothing to tempt me over to Telecon, typo intended. All they’re doing for me is eroding what love I may have built up for Hammond watching Top Gear.

Still they’re nowhere near as self-face-punchingly disgusting as that awful ad for Milestone Homes; or as skin-crawlingly vomit-inducing as the TV2 promos for Desperate Housewives that feature middle-aged women with scary looks on their faces jiggling and swarming towards the camera like so many horny zombies. I can’t even lookat that one.

I’m the first to admit, I’m not great at blogging. It’s not like I don’t have a lot to say. It’s just that I mostly have a lot to say after someone pisses me off or after a nice walk to work in the morning.

Also, at the moment, I get home from work with burning eyes and I’m not that interested in thinking. Ideally, I should be spending my evenings finishing up the album.

The good news is that we are very nearly there now. All but one (possibly two) of my guest appearances have been recorded. I have a few days of editing and final touches to the mix and then it’s over to Tom for mastering. I have the first three finished tracks back and I like what he’s done so far.

I met with Tom Bell today and passed along some mixes to be mastered for the preview disc, which should make its way to various media outlets next week.

There is a little bit left to record, a couple of things to rerecord and then the mix, which, since we’re not working on tape, has mostly been done as I’ve gone along.

On another note, I’m very sad that I wasn’t able to make it out to Hana Fahy’s album release last night. My back gave up yesterday arvo, I’m fairly uncomfortable. But, we have a slew of good releases coming out of Dunedin currently… Hana’s, mine, and I believe a Haunted Love release, all in the space of around a month, which is pretty damn nice.